Thinyser wrote:Only problem with miniguns is that they eat ammo like Josh does curly fries...
I don't know what a 20mm round weighs but I'm guessing its about 1/2 a pound (the 30mm that the A-10's canon fires weigh over a pound) so even if you can manage the gun itself how much ammo can one realistically expect to carry? Not too damn much I would bet.
Say you can carry 200 rounds thats only 5 bursts of 40 rounds. Great if you hit your target, and don't have many targets to take out but not so great if you miss (waste 1/5 of your ammo) or if there are more than 5 targets.
Well, if you're a Juicer, a borg, or in power armor, you're looking at something over 2,000 rounds for weight.
If you're in a vehicle, you could do zillions of rounds.
A minigun as a man-portable (or even borg/juicer portable) weapon system just doesn't make sense to me because of the low ammount of ammo that can be hauled around on your back and the high ROF that burns through it so quickly.
I don't think it's all that bad really. ESPECIALLY if you convert it to energy rather than cordite powered. If that happens, then you've got a LOT more room and weight to devote to ammunition.
Now on a large bot or vehicle where you can carry thousands of rounds It would make more sense but then again these type vehicles would probably be better off using a nuke power supply and rail guns. IMO 1 nuke supply and 4000 rounds for a railgun is better than a minigun and 2000 rounds.
A nuke supply and 4,000 rounds for a minigun is pretty freaking good, since it'd do significantly more damage than the rail gun when using the SA ammunition. Heck, a regular old .50 caliber weapon would do more damage than most rail guns when using the SA ammunition.
It converts SDC directly into MDC. A .50 does 7D6 with a single shot. Multiply it by 3 for a short burst, and you're looking at 21 dice of damage for a short burst from a .50 cal. That's as high as 126 points of damage due to a single burst.
Not too shabby.
/Sub
There's a reason...and a very good one...that I have certain people in this forum blocked both here and on Facebook.
I can see an illustration of that nearly every time I come here.